by Penn, J. F.
Jamie turned her body, dropping feet first into an attic space. She stood for a moment, breathing quietly, letting her heart rate return to normal as she listened to the building. It was still, silent, and she sensed it was empty, at least for now. But she didn't want to stay too long.
She clicked on her pen torch.
The attic space was cluttered with piles of boxes. Jamie opened one to find stacked rental agreements from the surrounding area. Another was full of sales receipts from a shop with a local address. With so many boxes and not much time, she couldn't hope to find anything up here.
Jamie walked down the stairs, pausing as one creaked underfoot. Her heart raced, but there was no sound of anyone else here. She continued on.
The first floor had an open-plan office space and a conference room with glass walls. The decor was magnolia and shades of blue, a relaxing professional place. She walked around the desks and checked the computers, but all were password protected or logged off. There were some papers on the desks, all evidence of a real estate management company. Nothing untoward. Jamie's heart sank as she looked around. Clearly Vera Causa was very good at navigating the right side of the law, even if their ethics could be questioned.
At the back of the open-plan area was a separate office area, the size of the space indicating it was for senior management. Jamie pushed open the door and glanced around. It was immaculate, chrome surfaces gleaming. It looked to be entirely paperless, no filing cabinets, no documents left out.
Then she saw something glint in the torchlight. Something that could make all the difference.
Chapter 28
It was only a fountain pen, but Jamie recognized it as belonging to Dale Cameron. Its distinctive silver fox-head cap was rare and she remembered him using it to sign paperwork back when she was in the police. It had also been in his top pocket when the news of the Mayoralty was announced. Now, the pen lay on the desk, perpendicular to a clean A4 pad of paper.
With her sleeve over her hand, Jamie picked up the pen, wrapped it in a sheet of paper and put it in her jacket pocket. The pen was useless to her, but perhaps Blake would be able to read something from it that would help.
Jamie walked quickly back up to the attic and climbed out of the skylight, making sure to leave it at the same angle it had been when she'd entered. She slipped down the roof tiles onto the fire escape and then quietly walked away from the office building. The pen seemed to burn in her pocket and she saw Dale Cameron's face in her mind. Like a puppet master, he controlled so much behind the scenes, and she wondered how far his influence stretched. How much further he could go as Mayor.
She roared away on the bike, heading towards Bloomsbury.
***
Blake stood in the kitchen holding an empty tequila bottle. It was the last of the batch and there was no other alcohol in the flat.
Perhaps he would go to the corner store and get a small bottle of vodka. That's all he needed to take the edge off. Or he could go down to Bar-Barian and buy his way into oblivion. In many ways that would be preferable, because right now he didn't know what else to do.
The choice his uncle had offered was a gold chalice laced with poison. He wanted to know about his gift, he wanted to meet his extended family, yet he had seen what they did in the forests of the north in a vision of blood and madness. He should forget the Galdrabók and embrace his life here.
But what life? he thought.
He and Jamie skirted the edges of something but were they both too damaged to take it any further? Without her, there was only casual sex, and with his job under threat, would he even have the choice to stay?
Blake clenched the bottle in his hand, knuckles white. Perhaps he shouldn't fight the addiction anymore. Perhaps it was time to just let it play out. He put the bottle next to the bin, picked up his keys, and grabbed his jacket.
The doorbell rang.
Blake frowned. He wasn't expecting anyone, certainly not this late. He clicked the intercom button.
"Hello," he said.
"It's Jamie." Her voice was soft. Blake's heart leapt in his chest. He put down his jacket and pressed the open button.
"Come up," he said.
Blake pulled open the door, listening to her footsteps climb the stairs, and then she was there, looking up at him from the stairwell. Her dark hair was tied back and there were shadows under her eyes.
"I'm sorry for coming this late," she said.
"It's fine." Blake smiled. "Are you OK?"
Jamie walked up the last few stairs. "It's been a hell of a day, to be honest."
Blake saw the vulnerability in her eyes and pulled her into his arms, hugging her close. She was stiff for a second and then she relaxed, exhaling as she returned his embrace.
She explained what had happened at Cross Bones, about O, the Kitchen, her eviction and the threat to the community.
"That really is a hell of a day," Blake said. "Coffee?"
She stepped away. "Yes please, and then I need your help with something."
He saw the question in her eyes.
"No, I haven't been drinking." He smiled again, this time with an edge of embarrassment. "Although if you'd come ten minutes later, things might have been different."
He wanted to tell her of his uncle's visit, of the possibilities of his gift. But she needed his focus on her now, not on his own dilemma.
Blake put the kettle on and made fresh coffee, carrying the mugs back into the main room. Jamie stood at his window looking out over the rooftops, her eyes fixed on the horizon like she wanted to fly out into the night.
She turned and placed a silver fountain pen wrapped in a piece of paper on his desk.
"I need you to read this," she said. "I don't know what else to do. I'm hoping that you'll see something that could help."
Blake considered his uncle's words, how every time he read strengthened the link between him and his kin. How he opened his mind to the other realm each time and that the drip drip drip of darkness would inch into him. He shouldn't do it. But this was for Jamie.
"OK," he said. "But you know I can't promise anything."
She nodded. "Please try anyway."
Blake sat down and took his gloves off. He placed both hands over the pen and lowered his fingertips to the silver, letting the cool metal connect with his skin. He closed his eyes and let the swirling mists rise up in his mind.
He felt an initial resistance, but then he gave into the sensation and dipped through the veil.
The pen was dense with memory, the emotions imprinted upon it holding fast to the metal. Colors swirled about him as Blake began to assume the mantle of the man who owned it. He picked a thread and opened his eyes within the vision.
He looked out at a sea of cameras, of smiling faces, a moment of triumph captured against a backdrop of the City of London. It was the pinnacle of the man's life so far. Blake felt a surge of power, the man's heart pounding as he accepted the position of Mayor. But behind the triumph, there was something darker, a pulse of rotten black that Blake saw as a visible stain. The man gloated over those he looked down upon, for they didn't know his true face.
Blake plucked the darker strings, following them down into a hidden place, closing his eyes again.
He had rarely followed these deeper emotions, preferring to skim on the surface of vision. But this man – Blake's breath caught as he glimpsed a corrupt core under the gleaming surface. The power he wielded was greater than the police, greater than the Mayoralty. He believed he had the power of life and death, who would rise and who would fall in his city. The sense of arousal was strong and as much as he didn't want to, Blake followed that thread.
He opened his eyes within the vision again and saw the chains and hooks of the abattoir above him.
He smelled the metallic hint of blood and machinery.
His hands felt sticky.
Blake looked down through the eyes of the man to see a body that lay on the slab before him, the skinning knife in his hand. A dragon i
n shades of purple flew across the man's back but there was no life in him left, only his skin would outlast his mortality. The knife hand hovered above the body. For an instant, Blake wanted to pull away in revulsion and drop out of the vision. He stopped himself, controlling the nausea, testing his own limits to stay within.
The man began to cut around the edge of the tattoo, dipping down into the layers of flesh. There was precision in his work and Blake experienced deep concentration and pride. The compartments in the man's mind enabled him to separate his public and private selves. We all have these two sides, Blake thought, but some are more deeply separated than others. There was no sense that the man saw the body in front of him as a person, only as an artwork in progress. And a way to exercise power against those who cluttered the streets.
But none of this would help Jamie. They needed proof, a way to stop the man.
He let the veil close over the scene and reached lower into the man's emotions. There was a rich vein deeper still in consciousness, a hidden box within the layers the man cloaked his life with. Blake let himself sink into it, and opened his eyes again.
He was in the man's study.
A pair of brown leather wingback chairs sat at oblique angles to a large oak table. Bookshelves lined the walls with an eclectic mix of tomes, from first editions to the latest forensic journals. The man was secure here but there was also a latent excitement, an expectation that went beyond what this room offered.
The man reached for a book on the bookcase and typed in a code, pulling a hidden door open. His arousal was heady and Blake fought to keep himself separate from this man's dark psyche. He understood the temptation to vicariously experience – the visions could allow him that – but like ink into water, it would taint his soul.
The hidden room was a trophy cabinet, Blake could see that immediately. He saw the beaked mask of the Venetian plague doctor, the books of human skin and framed tattoos, skin stretched and pinned into place. The skinning knife, clean and shiny, its blade glittering.
The man opened a safe and pulled out some papers. Blake glimpsed stock certificates with the name Vera Causa on them. The man pushed them aside and reached for a box carved with obscenities. He opened it and pulled out a sheaf of photos. Blake caught sight of a child's face and felt a spike in the man's arousal. He pulled away quickly before the images imprinted themselves on his mind. He had seen enough.
Blake opened his eyes and lifted his hands from the pen. The room swam a little as he refocused on the present, anchoring himself again to the physical world he inhabited. He let his mind scan over his own body, sensing he was back and had separated from the tendrils of the evil he had briefly touched.
Jamie handed him some water silently.
Blake drank several big gulps, letting the cool liquid slide down his throat, latching onto physical sensation. He took a deep breath and turned to face Jamie.
Chapter 29
"I think the pen belongs to the new Mayor, Dale Cameron," Blake said. Jamie didn't look surprised. "OK, you knew that."
Jamie nodded. "But I think he's more than that."
"You're right," Blake said. "I saw the abattoir, the beaked mask from the ball. He has a box full of photos – children – but I pulled away then."
Jamie reached for his hand and squeezed it. "I'm sorry you had to see that," she said. "But now we know."
Blake shook his head. "But it's inadmissible, you know that. The visions mean nothing without physical evidence."
Jamie's eyes glinted in the half light. "I know that, but I have contacts in the police. I can get this to the attention of the right people."
Blake put his head in his hands. The desire for alcohol had subsided, but his head pounded with the aftermath of the visions.
"You need to rest," Jamie said. "I know how much reading takes out of you. Come lie down."
She patted the bed next to her, pulling the covers open for him.
There was a part of Blake that wanted to lean down and kiss her right now, to stroke her bare skin with his scarred hands. Could he read her past? Could he take her pain from her?
But now wasn't the right time. It never seemed to be the right time.
He lay down and closed his eyes. He felt her breath on his cheek and then her lips touched his face in a light kiss. Her weight shifted a little as she leaned down.
"I need to make some calls and then I'll come and rest with you," she whispered. "Sleep now."
Blake wanted to hold onto that moment, he wanted to wait for her to come to bed, but he was exhausted. His mind and body spent. He let go of wanting and slipped into sleep.
Jamie heard Blake's breathing change as he fell asleep. His face relaxed and she watched him for a moment. He was a beautiful man and part of her wanted to curl around him and kiss his caramel skin, taste his body. He would wake in the night and they would finally take things further. All she had to do was slip into bed next to him.
But his vision had shaken her and Jamie knew she wouldn't sleep now.
Dale Cameron had been her boss in the police, but she had glimpsed his darker side several times. She had tried to ignore her suspicions before, but now she was sure that it must have been him in the smoke of the Hellfire Caves, covering up the scandal for his aristocratic friends. He procured the victims for the RAIN agency and now he was cleaning up the city in a much more personal way.
Jamie picked up her motorcycle helmet and gloves. She looked down at Blake's sleeping face once more, fixing his image in her mind.
This wasn't his responsibility. She had to do this alone.
She picked up the pen and put it in her pocket. Then she slipped out of the flat, mounted her bike and roared back towards Southwark.
The Mayor's new office was in the Shard, the tallest building in Europe, a tower of glass that rose above the ancient city like an angel's spear pointing the way to Heaven. Jamie parked below it and looked up. It was beautiful, a fitting place for Dale Cameron to survey his new domain. Jamie thought of the temptation of Jesus in the desert when the Devil had taken him to a high place and offered him the world if only he would call on the angels to lift him up. It seemed as if Cameron had already taken his deal with the Devil.
It was late, but she knew Cameron's habits from the police. He often worked late into the night, and in the first few days of his Mayoralty it was likely that he was still at the office. She also still had his mobile number.
She stood at the main entrance, closed and locked for the night. Jamie dialed Cameron's number.
It rang once, twice, three times. Her heart sank as she realized that she might not have the reckoning she craved tonight.
"Jamie Brooke." Cameron's voice was calm and assured. "I'm a little surprised to hear from you, especially at this late hour."
"I'd like to talk to you," Jamie said, her heart pounding. She didn't really have a plan as such, but her anger had carried her this far. She had to see it through now. "I remember how you used to work this late in the police." She paused. "I miss those times."
There was a moment of silence and she wondered if she had laid it on too thick.
A click and a whirr and the door slid open.
"Come up. Take the right-hand lift."
Jamie walked in, her footsteps echoing on the marble slabs underfoot. This place oozed wealth and power. No wonder Cameron liked it here.
The lift made her feel slightly queasy as it zoomed upwards. She took her phone out and activated the recording app, slipping it back into her pocket as the doors pinged. Jamie stepped out to find Cameron standing at the doorway to his office, a bottle of burgundy in his hand. He wore a grey suit that looked like it cost more than Jamie's motorbike. He was clean shaven and she could smell a hint of cologne. Enough to woo the senses, not overpower them.
"Drink?" he said, holding up the bottle. The movement revealed a Patek Philippe watch on his wrist. "I was about to have one myself and after all, it's not something we ever did when we worked together."
Jamie nodded. "That would be great."
He turned and she followed him through the open-plan workspace into his office. There were piles of boxes everywhere, paperwork strewn over desktops and pictures still in bubble wrap.
"We're still moving in," Cameron said, pouring the wine into two Riedel glasses. His eyes twinkled with excitement. "Lots to do. Exciting times for the city."
Jamie felt the edge of his charisma as she sipped the wine. He had the ability to make people feel special, his gaze a sunbeam of energy, like they were the only person in the world to him.
"It's good to see you, Jamie," Cameron said softly. "You were a great Detective, and I'm sorry you left when you did. I apologize if I made things hard for you, especially when you were coping with the death of your daughter."
Jamie let him talk. He was still a smooth bastard, that was for sure. No wonder the city loved him. But now she knew what was underneath that facade and she just had to draw it out.
"I need people I can trust now and as Mayor, I can make connections for you," Cameron continued, his voice confident. "You could come and work for me. Or you could go back into the police if you want, perhaps even at a higher level. I can make that happen. Or I know some people in private security, where you could earn more money than you ever have before, doing the work you love."
She pulled the silver pen from her pocket.
"I actually came to return this," she said, laying it on the desk.
His grey eyes narrowed a little as he reached for it.
"I wondered where that had gone." He looked at her closely. "Where did you find it?"
"I've been doing some private investigation work on behalf of the Southwark community since the murders. We've had difficult times in recent days."
"I'm sorry to hear that," Cameron said, his response almost automated, trotted out in interviews to display compassion. But the words were empty, his eyes suspicious.